The Valley Virginian. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1865-1895, 1887-09-01

be seen, neither party has any plan, and
any alluson to the debt question in this
canvass must be based upon past expert
ence and not upon any hope which can be
well founded on the decarationeither from
Roanoke or from Petersburg.
WHERE MALONE MISSED IT.
If either General Malone or Mr.. Bar
bonr had any mode OF lettering affairs In
this respect, it may be taken for granted
they would have proclaimed 1t. Surely
the people cannot base any ardent expec-
tation on the silence which both observe
On this subject. and which is about the
only point on which they seem. to agree
1t may and probably will be said thai Gen
Malone had and has plan, but feared to
promulgate it in dread that the Democrats
would make haste TO appropriate and make
their contest on it. But this cannot be SO,
because if the Democrats We're to change
base after the Roanoke convention they
would lose as much as ii standing to their
guns, and the Republican committee would
have been entirely safe in announcing their
scheme of debt settlement, having waited
until the Democrats had ANNOUNCED their
platform | must confess that the Repub-
lican failure to set forth some proposition
of machinery by which to arrive at a set
Element on the basis of the Riddleberger
/
is now imperative, and the fight must be
who will be most loyal to an enactment
which has lost it's operative power.
AuTCCRATlC POWER.
1t bad also been hoped by some Republi-
cans that the State Committee would have
found it fit their sense of duty and OF poll
cy to give the people of the party freef
! reign in the matter of convention, OF
choosing the county machinery. and OF Sc
| Letting their local candidates than has OF
late been done. There is nowhere. In my
Judgment, in the confines of the United
States an organization SO autocratlc as hat
which rests in the Executive Committee
of the Virginia Republican party. 1t not
only exercises power absolute ana m
questioned, without conference OF consul
tatlon, bat transmits that power to Its
local subordiuates. A free ballot and fair
count, which forms the corner stone OF
the Republican platform. knows no place
in the conduct of the party affairs. The
State chairman. as affairs are and have
been since 1878 administered, is himself
the committee and the party. The people
are not allowed even the privilege of or
ganizing themselves and electlng the party
officials in their respective neighborhoods.
The State Executive COmmittee-that is,
the Chairman thereof-appoints the chair
! man OF eacD CITY ana county, anu III Gildb
chairman resides the power of calling and
presiding over all conventions, not tempo
rarily, until the people may elect. but
throughout the proceedings, and no dele
gate is recognized in a general convention
VINO does not come uuder the seal and SUI
prescription of this creature of the central
creator.
THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE DEF EATED.
The result of this may be-nay, has
been-that minority. under the lead OF
the local chairman, speaks the voice OF
the party, and so the Will of the State Elk
ecl.tive Committee is enforced while that
Of the people is defeated. And yet they
wonder that Republicanism has not been
continuously victorious in Virginia since
1888 They wonder why freemen refuse
to be treated not as soldiers alone, but as
conscripts. They wonder why men who
are refused voice in the decision of plans
and the choice of leaders. should, when the
day of battle comes. either bravely protest
or else, for fear of helping Democracy ,sulk
like Achilles in his tent.
The men who in 1879, in resistance to
the intolerance of the Conservative party,